SELWESKI: 549 school districts is about 500 too many

Three times in the past three decades, St. Clair Shores voters have rejected ballot proposals to combine their city’s three small school districts into one.

The overriding issues in those elections were not about consolidation of administrative expenses or removing bureaucratic inefficiencies. Voters wanted to maintain local control and protect long-held traditions.

The Lake Shore student-athletes had to remain the Shorians. Community pride also demanded that the Lakeview students and alumni continue to root for the Huskies. South Lake embraced similar sentiments.

But we now know that such nostalgia has no place in Michigan’s mess, don’t we?

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With a record 55 Michigan school districts facing budget deficits, State School Superintendent Mike Flanagan admirably stepped forward last week to propose a massive consolidation of our 549 local districts into 83 countywide districts.

That is enough to send shivers up the spines of every defender of the status quo in the Michigan K-12 education system.

But we are now three years out from Michigan’s recovery from the Great Recession and the auto company bankruptcies, yet the financial fate of our school districts is getting worse, not better.

In fact, Michigan suffered a black eye this past spring when the temporary shutdown of the Buena Vista school district near Saginaw gained national attention. That was a story of financial losses, mismanagement and a state bailout.

Flanagan’s bold plan to eliminate duplication is certainly overdue, as Michigan has more school districts, per capita, than any other state in the nation. Due to archaic cutouts in district lines that, frankly, reflected racial and cultural differences and were designed to keep “those people” on the other side of the tracks, Michigan’s system seems a bit bizarre compared to some states where countywide districts have been the norm for decades.

It’s also important to note that the Flanagan consolidation proposal presented to the Legislature comes at a time when only 20 percent of the state’s high school juniors, students heading into their senior year, are considered “college ready,” according to test scores.

The percentage of Michigan residents with bachelor’s degrees remains stagnant, below the national average, while state business leaders project a 1 million job shortfall if the skills gap continues.

Clearly, the puzzle pieces that comprise Michigan’s convoluted 549 districts are no longer rational or affordable. The teachers’ unions must accept moves toward economies of scale and stop claiming that more and more funding is the answer. The train wreck that is the heavily funded Highland Park school district certainly demolishes that argument.

In Oakland County, state funding is allocated to 28 school districts for 28 separate bureaucracies which focus on the business aspects of running school buildings just as much as the business of helping students learn. How does one defend that?

Michigan’s illogical and wasteful system of funding such districts can be crystallized by making Dakota High School a focal point. Located in Macomb Township in Macomb County, Dakota is the kind of vast, modern building that has become the norm these days for new high schools.

Under the roof of that one building, 2,500 high school students are educated. Yet, 375 school districts in Michigan, 68 percent of the state’s total, have a K-12 enrollment that is less than the number of kids at one location on 21 Mile Road in southeast Michigan.

In fact, 91 districts have no more than 500 students – about 31 kids per grade – yet they operate independently from their neighboring districts.

Do we really want to pay a six-figure salary for each district superintendent, a payday of about $80,000 for each finance director, maybe a $75,000 salary for a transportation (school bus) director, and around $60,000 for each food service director?

In this economic climate, how can that be justified?

Flanagan is convinced that consolidated districts would save the state many millions of dollars. But, recognizing the political opposition that is coming his way, the state superintendent is also proposing an interim hybrid system in which the intermediate school districts would handle most of the duties not directly related to classrooms.

In some cases, the ISDs, which have existed for 50 years, encompass a single county. In northern Michigan they represent a sprawling network that provides help to a wide array of local districts.

Under the hybrid plan, the ISDs, which currently concentrate on special education and teacher training, would expand their scope to oversee for the local districts all bus transportation, food services and school building technology.

The ISD interim plan makes sense, but only if it is accompanied by pilot projects that allow sparsely populated counties to gradually pursue the ultimate goal of consolidated countywide districts. To be fair, countywide systems would require numerous changes in financial operations for individual districts. Deciding how to handle bond issues for building repairs and improvements might be especially tricky.

In his letter to legislative leaders, Flanagan outlined dozens of state laws and regulations that would require alteration if lawmakers embraced a hybrid system or county-by-county districts.

But critics who cringe at the prospect of losing local control must concede that the numerous changes in state K-12 funding and operations of the past 20 years has substantially limited the powers of local school boards.

What’s more, Flanagan proposes maintaining local school boards during a 5-year phase-in period. And there’s no reason that Lakeview High School can’t continue cheering for their Huskies mascot and rival Lake Shore cannot maintain allegiance to their Shorians.

Some studies have suggested that consolidation is an oversold concept that won’t work in large and medium-sized counties. But I watch as Macomb County Finance Director Pete Provenzano performs his wizardry over a $600 million county budget, managing to hold things together even as he cuts employees and costs.

And Provenzano oversees a wide-ranging bureaucracy that provides a mix of public services that is far more complex and daunting than the agenda faced by those who solely offer K-12 education.

This can be done. This should be done.

Let our state’s top education official lead us on a new path where bigger really is better.